The great AR hallmarks debate, on wishing to scream your lungs out and still feeling voiceless.

WHEN THE HELL DID THE ANIMAL LIBERATION HALLMARKS BECOME JUST ANTI RACIST? For weeks now I’ve been hearing the same fucking debate again and again, asking whether we should stand by the hallmarks , or allow everybody into the movement so long as they support animal rights regardless of all other beliefs they may hold. How soon people forget, the hallmarks are a stance against all forms of discrimination, race , sexuality, age, gender identity, gender presentation. It is a stance for equality, want to start pulling bricks from a foundation for true equality? go ahead, but which one do you pull first? how many others will it take with it?

If you start treating some as more equal than others you lose something vital, one of the main points against animal abuse is it is speciesism. How do you explain speciesism if you refuse to call out any other forms of discrimination? Well for a start it makes it a damned sight harder. You can’t really argue that a human being mistreating an animal shouldn’t do it if you’re supporting the thug around the corner giving the gay couple who had the guts to show up a black eye. Nor can you truly claim to oppose speciesism while targeting people based on the colour of their skin, it’s completely screwed up.

Meanwhile while this is made all about racism , homophobia and transphobia are festering beneath the surface. Wait a sec weren’t the hallmarks against those too? Does that mean we are supposed to let gay bashers in too? God I hope not.

A common arguement seems to be, I joined for the animals, well so did the rest of us, but speciesism swings both ways , that means human animals and non human animals deserve equal treatment. That means bettering the situation for non human animals, it should NEVER mean bettering things for one at the expense of the other.

I am fucking sick of justifying my existence every gathering I attend. Sick of hearing little racist jokes, little homophobic gags, or the ever classic “is IT a boy or girl” repeated mispronouning, and frequent unsolicited advice. I have been publicly outted at demos, and threatened more than once. Now you are asking me to work alongside those people like numbers are more important than my survival, than the welfare of those I work to protect every night of my life. I was raised to treat racism as one of the worst things a human being can be, that such attitudes kill millions every year . Yet somehow I’m supposed to work alongside these people like I find their attitudes any less contemptible than the people who lend their support to HLS. Life is all worthy of equal respect and all activists who fight fight for one thing above all else I personally believe, a better, happier , fairer world. Isn’t that what we should all be fighting for?